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Brewers breeze through first turn in rotation

4/5/14: Wily Peralta tosses five innings of two-run ball against the Red Sox, collecting six strikeouts along the way

By Adam McCalvy
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MLB.com |

BOSTON -- After a first turn through the Brewers rotation, things were looking good to pitching coach Rick Kranitz.

Brewers starters entered Sunday with a 1.99 ERA, sixth-best in baseball behind the Braves, Mariners, A's, Tigers and Cubs. None of Milwaukee's starting five surrendered more than three earned runs in his season debut, and Yovani Gallardo, Matt Garza and Marco Estrada each allowed one earned run or fewer.

"To me, what's good is they all look real comfortable," Kranitz said. "To me, that's big. Nobody was overthrowing the ball, which is typical early with guys. Any time you look that comfortable, that probably means you're feeling comfortable, and that means you're going to make pitches."

Manager Ron Roenicke was particularly encouraged with Wily Peralta's outing against the Red Sox on Saturday night. He was charged with five runs, though only two were earned because of some very shaky infield defense behind him.

Last season, Roenicke said, Peralta might have been flustered by those mistakes.

"I was really happy to see Wily, after we didn't play well behind him, still come back and make pitches, not lose the intensity," Roenicke said. "At times, we see him do that. I was really happy to see him hang in there with it. That kind of stuff shows me a lot about the maturity.

"I see five guys that can go out there and go through some good lineups. I don't expect us to have this kind of ERA and numbers all year, but I see five guys that should be consistent through the whole season. If we're doing that, I think we'll score enough runs that we should be a really good team."

Adam McCalvy is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Brew Beat, and follow him on Twitter at @AdamMcCalvy. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.